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Quicksilver Vs. Spotlight...?

I

iBunny

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 15, 2004
1,254
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Ok, I am not really new to the Mac, but I am a PC guy. Accually I have owned a Mac for the better part of the last 4 years, and recently switched to a brand new MBP. No more PC since I can virtulize windows.

Anyway,
I love Tiger. Great OS. I find spotlight useful, but dont use it all the time. If I want to find a Program, i just open finder, click on apps and launch the app that way. I only use spotlight when I need to locate something I dont use everyday, like maybe a Photo that isnt in iPhoto, or a Text Document or something.

So my understanding of quicksilver is - Its just like spotlight... and does the same thing. It Indexes, searches, and launches...

So Why is it "Better" or whatever? Regaurdless, when I get home from work, I am going to Download it and try it. But I just want your opinions and expirances.

Thanks
 
To me, Quicksilver is great for launching applications. I've never used or tried Spotlight for this, but Quicksilver is so fast, just ctrl+space, type the first few letters of an app or folder, hit enter. Simple as that.
 
odinsride said:
To me, Quicksilver is great for launching applications. I've never used or tried Spotlight for this, but Quicksilver is so fast, just ctrl+space, type the first few letters of an app or folder, hit enter. Simple as that.
Click to expand...

I have actually never understood/asked why people prefer this over a dock. It seems so much easier to just mouse over the app you want and click. So many mac users fawn over quicksilver though, there must be some advantage.
 
barr08 said:
I have actually never understood/asked why people prefer this over a dock. It seems so much easier to just mouse over the app you want and click. So many mac users fawn over quicksilver though, there must be some advantage.
Click to expand...

Many people are more keyboard oriented than mouse oriented, me being one of them. If there's a keyboard shortcut for something, I'll use it any day over fumbling around with a mouse.
 
odinsride said:
Many people are more keyboard oriented than mouse oriented, me being one of them. If there's a keyboard shortcut for something, I'll use it any day over fumbling around with a mouse.
Click to expand...

Same with me. I find it much quicker and easier to use the keyboard over a mouse.
 
I dont think quicksilver will bennifit me then...

I rarely take my hand off the mouse.

What else does quicksilver do?
 
iBunny said:
I dont think quicksilver will bennifit me then...

I rarely take my hand off the mouse.

What else does quicksilver do?
Click to expand...

Quicksilver also does many actions for example, you type the name of the file, then tab, and itl show you some options:


tree.jpg <tab> compress <tab> email to... > choose the person and it emails the file, compressed!

you can control itunes with shorcuts and do so much more. I mostly use it for launching apps since its seems so much faster than spotlight for me.
 
I've tried Quicksilver at various times, but I never really found it useful. If I need to launch an app that I don't have on the dock I usually bring up Spotlight, and it works fine for me. Maybe in another 6 months I'll try Quicksilver again.
 
Quicksilver is one of my favorite apps, but f you just want a launcher, then i suppose Spotlight is fine, better still in Leopard.

My vote goes to QS, though.

And to the poster who said a dock will suffice- well a dock uses up a lot of space, and so a launcher is better when you've hidden the dock e.g. in Final Cut. It's also highly versatile and isn't just for launching apps.

MA.
 
I use it almost exclusively as an application/file launcher. It's faster than Spotlight because you just get the (one) most relevant item as you type, not a list of every file that has the word, say, "console" in it.
 
For a pure application launcher i use Namely. I tried migrating to Quicksilver but it was just too much and didn't really offer any new to what i already have and found it pretty unstable so i ditched it.
 
If you only ever use Quicksilver as an application launcher, or as a kind of alternative to Spotlight for finding files, then you're missing out on some of its more interesting capabilities. I know this, because that's how I used to think of Quicksilver.

I don't know that there's an official "manual" for Quicksilver, but Howard Melman has written the closest thing to it (the PDF of his Quicksilver User's Guide is here). Adam Pash at Lifehacker has written a series of articles about Quicksilver that should give you a better idea of all that it can do. Merlin Mann at 43Folders has also written a lot of articles over the last few years about how he (and others) use Quicksilver.
 
Quicksilver basically kicks some serious butt. I use it to launch programs, run scripts, and loads of other stuff. One of my favorite things is typing in the name of someoen in my address book, pressing enter, and new email pops up and i can just start typing to them.
 
odinsride said:
To me, Quicksilver is great for launching applications. I've never used or tried Spotlight for this, but Quicksilver is so fast, just ctrl+space, type the first few letters of an app or folder, hit enter. Simple as that.
Click to expand...

with spotlight, i hit cmd-space, type a couple letters of the app i want and press cmd-return to launch the app. almost as simple, but just as quick. they're changing this in leopard, however, so you don't have to press that last command with the return key.

i never got used to quicksilver, and i never really liked the look and feel of it.
 
I love Quicksilver, but I still think spotlight has a market.

That and the fact Quicksilver seems really quick at crashing.
 
ghall said:
I've tried Quicksilver at various times, but I never really found it useful. If I need to launch an app that I don't have on the dock I usually bring up Spotlight, and it works fine for me. Maybe in another 6 months I'll try Quicksilver again.
Click to expand...

I used to use Quicksilver a heap until I realised that I only really use a handful of apps regularly and they are on my dock, for the times that I want to use something not on there Spotlight is fast enough for me.
 
qs is useless as a mere app launcher, but I love all the various things I can do with it.

Even as an app launcher, it's nice because you don't have to click on icons in the dock or go digging through /Applications. And I have spotlight disabled. Most useless piece of junk ever, first thing to go on a fresh install. :D

blacktree has some other interesting apps/plugins/addons too, like visor. i always have terminal open to use, but visor gives me a global terminal that looks like a visor that I don't have to go to terminal to use :D Awesome stuff.
 
quicksilver is faster and more responsive in my view. when searching in spotlight, my imac usually locks up for a few seconds before displaying results, but quicksilver is instant
 
barr08 said:
I have actually never understood/asked why people prefer this over a dock. It seems so much easier to just mouse over the app you want and click. So many mac users fawn over quicksilver though, there must be some advantage.
Click to expand...

So...I installed quicksilver last night...and it has instantly become a neccesary part of my OS X interface...

OK I'll say it. You were all right...

Though I still have yet to try spotlight...
 
barr08 said:
So...I installed quicksilver last night...and it has instantly become a neccesary part of my OS X interface...

OK I'll say it. You were all right...

Though I still have yet to try spotlight...
Click to expand...

/cheers :)
 
rev316 said:
Quicksilver seems really quick at crashing.
Click to expand...
I won't claim that it's never crashed on me -- I suppose it may have and I'm just forgetting that -- but I can say for sure that it rarely crashes for me. Are you using the most recent version (B51)? Have you been able to associate the crashes with a particular function or plug-in?

janey said:
qs is useless as a mere app launcher... Even as an app launcher, it's nice
Click to expand...
So, which is it? Useless or nice? ;)
 
Well I tried quicksilver and I was thinking it was just ok until i needed to find a document called "VMWare Beta Key"

I forgot what I exactly named it, so I typed "vmke" and it found it! I dont have to type what im looking for in order!

Simply Amazing peice of software Quicksilver is, and now, Im hooked, and dont want to live without it.

<3 :apple: :D
 
Qs

Quicksilver is also MUCH faster than spotlight, as it's more application oriented while spotlight seems to be name oriented.

You can also do a lot more than just launch apps with QS.
 
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